The Queen's Pier Story .. .. ..

August 2006

Dear Member and supporter,

Annual General Meeting and News

I have pleasure in advising you that the Friend's 2006 Annual General Meeting will be held on September 18th in Ramsey Town Hall. Your formal "Notice" is printed overleaf.
I realise that some of you will now be thinking it is not a year since we last held one and you will be right. Due to the promise of "something about to be announced shortly" we had allowed our 2005 AGM to slip back and back in the hope of giving positive news. Sadly this did not come about and we are not going to fall into the same trap again. Hence two Annual General Meetings in the same year.

Most of you will have been following the news in the Press and elsewhere of our continued pressure to have "our" Pier restored to the Manx Nation and I will not promise to be able to give 'hard news' when we meet in September. I can give a brief resume of this years developments to date and will update this as matters unfold.

As you know the Honorable Select Committee on the Queen's Pier finally submitted its Report to Tynwald in June. It was very favourable to the idea of Restoration and we thank those members of the Select Committee for their work.

Sadly when the time came for Tynwald to vote on the recommendations, the Report and its several amendments were all rejected. All Ramsey representatives in Tynwald gave very spirited and supportive speeches but failed to carry the day and yet another valiant attempt to get the Pier repaired was lost. But it did not end there.

The following day, 22nd June, Chief Minster Donald Gelling announced that the issue of the pier had been raised at that morning's meeting of Council of Ministers at which he said it was recognised there was a 'general feeling that something should be progressed'. He said his Council of Ministers would report back to Tynwald in February 2007 after considering the implications of the Select Committee report.

Since then several Ministers have made favourable comments on the Pier with DoLGE Minister John Rimmington joining Treasury Minister Allan Bell in publicly stating his support to the Pier. It is believed there is now a general willingness in our Council of Minsters to back refurbishment.

So whilst we must now wait for a further six months it would seem that at last there is a note of realism being sounded. This is very heartening after so long and of course there is an Election looming in November.
I am sure that you will all be making your views known to your candidate(s) when they ask for your vote!

In the meantime your Committee is continuing to exert political pressure where it matters as well as keep the Pier issue very much alive.

Fred Hodgson,
Chairman.